New project "Jazz Pictures About My Country"

9. 8. 2012

Performing a musical and artistic project called JAZZ PICTURES ABOUT MY COUNTRY.

This joint venture of Tomáš Vybíral, a professor at Prague Conservatory of Music, a classic double-bass virtuoso, a drummer and a composer (www.tomvybiraltrio.cz), and the art group RASTR (www.rastrart.cz) is a musical and artistic feat based on Bedřich Smetana’s symphonic cycle “Má vlast“ (“My Fatherland”). It is not just the jazz fans whom the project’s efforts are aimed at; its main mission is to acquaint the audiences all over the world with this exquisite work, since it is performed far less often abroad than here.
Tomáš Vybíral worked with the original Smetana’s opus in an extraordinarily intriguing way – on top of the titles and the mood of individual pieces, he also drew inspiration from short musical themes, which he improvised on. This gave rise to six unique compositions, to which, later, English lyrics were added. English language was chosen so as to comply with generally accepted jazz standard and make the performance understandable worldwide. The connection between the music and the lyrics is rather symbolic – the knights of freedom sleeping deep inside of every one of us (“BLANÍK“); the eternal fight between the man and the woman and the man’s inability to resist the woman’s weaponry (“Šárka”); childhood memories (“Z ČESKÝCH LUHŮ A HÁJŮ“), etc. All these, put together, form a poetic jazz suite, which projects interesting pictures of the Czech past and the present. Thus, it adds a new dimension to the jazz music scene.
Mr. Vybíral asked his jazz trio members – musicians and artists – Ondřej Štajnochr and František Krtička, and Zuzana Mikulcová, a singer, to cooperate on the project.
Art group RASTR (www.rastrart.cz) is a free association of three painters – Miloš Englberth, Jindřich Hájek and Jakub Kándl, and a photographer, Jiří Macht. These four artists are preparing a collection of at least twelve paintings in close connection with Mr Vybíral’s music.
The project premiere (a concert and a public exhibition of the art work) is scheduled for 5 November 2012 at Žofín Garden with the assistance of our medial partner, Czech Radio 3 – Vltava. On this day, we are also going to celebrate the 130th anniversary of the first public performance of Smetana’s „MÁ VLAST“ (My Country).